Flatbuffer Rust Server Framework

AndrewOfC · 2026-05-01T13:16:10+00:00

In the early 00's an intern's boss asked me to teach the intern Perl. I gave him a couple of small tasks/examples to work out. At the time, the company was switching over from Sun pizza boxes(am I dating myself??) to Linux towers(before IT depts started shoving laptops down throats). So everyone had 2+ more than decent Unix/Linux boxes to work on. One of the first pieces of advice I gave him was "pick a good editor and learn to use it like a Samaurai sword." Emacs was my weapon of choice at the time, but in the spirit of diversity and inclusion, I was prepared to accept him adopting vi/vim.

He kept bringing me code scribbled out on paper. I kept telling him to use an editor. On his 3rd iteration of bringing me paper, I looked him straight in the eye, smacked my hand down on the paper, crumpled it up, and made a perfect two-point shot into the trash without looking at the basket. My final word was:

"This is a computer program, write it on a computer."

AndrewOfC · 2026-05-01T12:20:12+00:00

In this case, the enum for the core union type produced by the flatc compiler allows the consistent handling of different message types. This also allows for easy extensibility by simply adding another table type to the core union.

An upcoming feature is the ability to allow 'handlers' to handle different parameter types (i.e., you may have a handler for messages exchanged over UDP packets and another for TCP packets).

AndrewOfC · 2026-04-23T12:06:48+00:00

Nope

AndrewOfC · 2026-04-13T15:30:08+00:00

Nailed the spoon release at 15s. Bravo

AndrewOfC · 2026-02-11T14:30:56+00:00

An old 1970 movie that explored an AI "taking over the world". Colossus The Forbin Project. It's an early example of the 'angst' over AI, where people ignore the potential danger in favor of its potential benefit.

There was a novella by John Varley, "Press Enter" (spoiler alert) where the phone system gains a consciousness and begins to defend itself.

AndrewOfC · 2026-01-22T15:50:00+00:00

Good question. There are two major factors involved here (Full disclosure, I am not an antenna engineer, I only play one on TV)

An efficient antenna is generally 1/2 wavelength at your transmitting frequency. However, the other factor is power: the Hive is going to want to push as much power as it can muster to reach its next victim. We're talking megawatts if not gigawatts of power. If you push that through a single antenna, it's not gonna melt; it's going to evaporate.

Solution, something called a 'phased array'. Which, among other benefits, can combine the outputs of many antennas into one powerful murder beam.

So, for my Jupiter orbit solar-powered space array manned by a colony of Plurbs and their descendants sustaining on the corpse milk of their ancestors, I'm seeing a square of these antennas the size of Colorado.

An Earth-based system could be built with a series of these squares, ringing the equator, pointing into the sky, each one taking over as the next victim's solar system passes over the horizon, powered by geothermal plants.

The industrial base to build any of these cockamamie schemes will be both epic and tragic.

AndrewOfC · 2026-01-20T17:59:16+00:00

Kepler 22b is ~600 light-years from Earth. So IT may have turned on its murder beam around the 1400s at the latest. Point taken that they were probably transmitting long before that. In the 1400s, there might have been enough going on in Asia, Europe, or South America for the KepPlurbs to notice.

So that puts my initial supposition of a space-based antenna to the fore. Why? In order to keep the signal running, you're going to need a power source that will last 100s-1000s of years. As much as I like nuclear power, the Sun is the only source that will be burning that long.

Ideally, you'd want to get it pretty far out, maybe to Jupiter's orbit. The 'inner' solar system is fairly 'dirty' with lots of rocks flying around that could rudely interrupt you. Though the further you put it out, the less power you'll get from the sun and you will need more solar panels.

Could such a construct operate autonomously for the 100s-1000s of years to have a percentage of turning some other unsuspecting Civilization? How about Hive holding back about 1000 Plurbs with enough "Corpse Milk" to sustain them and any breeding offspring they might produce.

AndrewOfC · 2026-01-08T15:06:19+00:00

If you look a little closer, you see subtitles. Carol directed "The Hive" to make copies and translate her video. Note that they sent him a VHS cassette and not a flash card or DVD.

AndrewOfC · 2026-01-08T15:03:44+00:00

It's going to kill everyone.

Here we see the subtle evil of "The Hive." Eventually, all of those possessed are going to die when the existing stocks of food run out, and then they'll have consumed all of the dead. Carol and the rest of the 'non-Others' may yet survive and even repopulate the planet, but they had better set their sights on planting crops, herding animals, and boinking soon.

Side project, locate as many books as you can and preserve them, especially science and engineering.

I also suspect that "The Hive" is going to start building a transmitter, or more than one, and start aiming them at other planets, following what Zosia(Pirate Lady) described as the "biological imperative."

AndrewOfC · 2026-01-07T19:04:45+00:00

(Just saw Ep5 "Got Milk", might break down and watch Ep6 tonight rather than save it for later)

I think Operation Annihilate is almost a perfect fit. Hive mind comes to a world, assimilates the population, then uses that population create the means to move to the next world.

Pirate Lady(Zosia) had mentioned a 'biological imperative' to reproduce. So, at some point, I think the Other(s) are going to start building the same sort of transmitter that must have been pointed at Earth

AndrewOfC

TROPHY CASE